"Of all the souls made famous by YouTube — Justin Bieber, those wedding entrance dancers, that guy who loses his mind while videotaping a double-rainbow — none is more deserving than MIT physics professor Walter Lewin. Lewin taught introductory physics at the university for more than three decades, and his lectures were intense, elegant, and perfectly orchestrated tributes to the harmonies of the physical world.

 

Lewin is 6 feet 2, silver-haired, and...

 Psychology Today: 

Amy Ellis Nutt Reads from Shadows Bright As Glass

Energy Deja Vu: Obama Must Break with Failed U.S. Policies

 

By Michael Graetz, Yale Environment 360

by Michael Graetz

Despite soaring rhetoric and some promising proposals, President Obama is repeating the same mistakes that have doomed U.S. energy policy to failure for 40 years. Until Obama and Congress finally put a true price on the fossil fuels America consumes, the U.S. will continue its addiction to foreign oil and domestic coal.

 The weekend following President Obama's energy policy speech on March 30 and the White House's simultaneous release of its "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future," many newspapers ran a cartoon by Jeff Stahler depicting the eight presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, each supplying one word of the refrain: "We must...

The Platform: Good Reviews Are No Longer Enough

Congratulations Amy! 

 For a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, using any available journalistic tool, including text reporting, videos, databases, multimedia or interactive presentations or any combination of those formats, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

 

Awarded to Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., for her deeply probing story of the mysterious sinking of a commercial fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean that drowned six men.

For a list of the  other 2011 winners and finalists click here. 

Jon Sarkin: When Brain Injuries Transform Into Art

Fresh Air from WHYY, April 18, 2011

"Jon Sarkin was working as a chiropractor when he suffered a massive stroke. Afterwards, the 35-year-old became a volatile visual artist with a ferocious need to create, as his brain tried to make sense of the world at large.

"[My artwork is] a manifestation of what happened to me," Sarkin tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I've learned how to visually represent my existential dilemma caused by my stroke."

Sarkin is the subject of Shadows Bright as Glass, a new book by science writer Amy Nutt. The book describes Sarkin's journey from happy-go-lucky doctor to manically-compulsive artist. It also raises larger questions about identity and what makes us each who we are.

"Is it memory? Is it...

From Kirkus Reviews

KILLER STUFF AND TONS OF MONEY

Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea-Market America

By Maureen Stanton (Author)

 

Editor Review (reviewed on May 1, 2011)

 

A tour d’horizon of the world of antiques, from flea markets to antiques shows to high-end auction houses, with...